Lessons in Kinky Boots

Lots of high energy in the Tony-award winning musical Kinky Boots

One of the Broadway shows we saw was Kinky Boots, the Tony-award winning show featuring words and lyrics by Cyndi Lauper and book by Harvey Fierstein.

Rock star Brendon Urie plays Charlie Price

The musical is based on a 2005 British film called Kinky Boots that was inspired by true events. In the show, Charlie Price is the fourth generation of a shoe-making business but needs to figure out how to keep the company from going bankrupt and has an encounter with a drag queen...

Brendon Urie plays Charlie, and when he first appeared on stage, there were hysterical screams from young women in the audience because he's the frontman for the rock band Panic!

Having someone famous -- and easy on the eyes -- helps sell tickets, and in this case Urie plays the part well.

However his co-star J. Harrison Ghee as Lola was electrifying. He can not only sing his heart out, but has hilarious lines he delivers with pizazz and can dance in heels. He and the other drag queens do some really cool moves... talk about making drag queens more mainstream than ever in a Tony-award winning musical!

Also fantastic is the character Nicola played by Taylor Louderman, who really made the audience laugh with her lines and body language.

J. Harrison Ghee is amazing as drag queen Lola

The storyline is well thought out and focused on the similarities of the two characters even though they have such different backgrounds. It makes you realize how each had to have courage to carry on despite the risks stacked against them.

Nevertheless, overall the show was very high energy and after the show was over, many people wanted to dance their way out of the theatre.

Lots of fun!

Kinky Boots

Al Hirschfeld Theatre

302 West 45th Avenue

New York

kinkybootsthemusical.com

Review: La La Land

Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling star in a romantic musical called La La Land

Lunar New Year is a time to meet up with relatives, eat too much, and watch movies.

Today I went to see La La Land, and it was a nice feel-good movie for the holidays.

Viewers are immediately swept up in the opening scene of gridlock on a Los Angeles highway, but then suddenly a young woman breaks into song and dance and everyone else gets out of their vehicles for an impromptu dance party.

The opening scene is so memorable and energetic

Do they really happen?

But your disbelief is suspended then and pretty much for most of the movie.

We soon meet Mia (Emma Stone), a struggling actress trying to get her big break, and Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) an ardent jazz aficionado.

It takes them three chance encounters to realize a spark between them, and viewers soon disccover it's their idealism that brings them together, and only in LA.

Gosling and Stone are great together, and pretty impressive they not only sing but dance too, harking back to the singing and dancing films like Singing in the Rain and Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, but now with iphones, Priuses and cappuccinos. Gosling also plays the piano with ease.

The pair play idealistic artists pursing their dreams in LA

And the colours! They are so technicolour brilliant that you have to wonder if they were digitally enhanced like the scene where Stone and Gosling first sing and dance together at sunset. But according to director Damien Chazelle, they really did shoot the scene at the "magic hour", and they only had the chance to do five takes.

However it can't all be hunky dory -- tensions arise when the dreams of how they envision their careers take different paths, and the ending isn't what you expect it to be, but the wistful what-ifs are a bit too predictable.

Nevertheless, we couldn't help but be swept off our feet with La La Land, with the intense colours, singing, dancing, wry humour and a big dollop of escapism, especially in these uncertain times.

La La Land

Starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, John Legend

Directed and written by Damien Chazelle